Why It's Hard To Be Good

Professor Gini has written an excellent book describing the difficulties and the importance of being good. The problem is that we are easily consumed with ourselves: our own wants and our own desires. Once we become consumed with ourselves, we begin to seek our own desires at the expense of other people. If we have to run over others to fulfill our own desires, so be it. Gini provides a good explanation as to why we tend to be so narcissistic.What is great about "Why It's Hard To Be Good" is that it provides a way out of our narcissistic tendencies. Ethics is always about how we treat others. What truly gives fulfillment to our lives is being in a caring community. Indeed, it is never easy to do the right thing, and we all make mistakes, but the point is that ethics is always concerned with others. The ability to see beyond our own desires and to be open to the needs and desires of others is the challenge posed by ethics."Why It's Hard To Be Good" is relatively short, but far from superficial. Gini added many real life ethical dilemmas, making the book even more interesting and challenging. Highly recommended.[...]

Following "The Importance of being lazy", I picked up Al Gini's "Why it is hard to be good" for more insight about the ethical issues in the North American work culture. To be frank, I am a little disappointed.He started off on a very good note, explaining the problems that we have with work and ethics, and mixing the two together. I learnt a lot from it. But the book lost steam after the first two to three chapters. His later chapters, on specifics, he tends to dwell on a single example for each chapter (from Nazis, to Enron, and to Tony Soprano) and then a few paragraphs at the end to talk about how it relates to his thesis. I personally find the connection a little weak.Furthermore, when I read the chapter concerning leisure, it was like almost reading a 20-page synopsis of "The Importance of being lazy." I am not familiar with his other previous works on business ethics, but I can only infer the degree of recycled material from these areas as well.If you have already familiar with Al Gini's older works, I don't think this book would add too much new material. Maybe he had the first-time reader in mind when he wrote this book.